Sunday, January 15, 2017

A Weeknight Winter Salad

January 11, Wednesday night dinnerAs you plan your meals for the upcoming week (we like to do this on Sunday afternoons), consider picking up a few versatile ingredients that will work for throwing together some quick but very satisfying full-sized salads. Salads are great because they use fresh ingredients that you don't have to take time to cook, and they often require minimal washing and chopping. The downside of course is that fresh ingredients go bad faster, so you run the risk of not finishing off the crisper drawer before things start to turn. If this happens though, it's a perfect opportunity for a Saturday morning shakshuka...stay tuned for an example of one of those! When prepping a salad, it often requires minimal additional effort to go ahead and prep them for several meals at once. Salads tend to stay fresher when you store them in single-serve sized containers rather than one big one, and you're more likely to grab it in the morning to take it with you for lunch. Throw in some base greens for each salad (I made six at once last week) and then chop or prepare enough toppings for each one. You can mix and match ingredients to give yourself the necessary variety, and you can wait until the day-of to add whatever protein strikes your fancy. We used smoked salmon on days 1 and 3, and two boiled eggs on day 2. Don't forget to include a generous serving of plant-source fats (avocado, nuts, olive oil, etc) in your salad, this is what gets you full and keeps you satisfied. Don't worry about the high density calories from these foods, an avocado for lunch makes you less likely to snack later. Winter salad:Greens: pre-washed baby spinach and kaleChopped cucumber (out of season, but ridiculously on sale that day, so I went for it)Chopped purple and orange carrotsRoasted acorn squashRoasted beets Toasted walnutsEdamame (Frozen and rinsed to unfreeze. It's parboiled, so you don't actually have to cook it any more)Smoked salmon1/2 sliced avocadoOlive oil Note: the roasted things were from a previous night's dinner, so all I did was reheat them in the toaster oven before serving. You can always repurpose leftovers into new dishes to use them up.